Jun 18, 2019
Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors)
[00:00:00] Hi this is Carolyn Springer. Welcome to the next session. I'm calling you with Beatty Carmichael Beatty is the CEO of Master grabber. He created agent dominator and he's one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Today we're going to be having one of our radical things call they'll welcome me. I'm excited to get started.
[00:00:21] Well thank you Caroline and I am excited as well and for just as a note for those who are joining in from the real estate side of things. If you're looking for marketing this call is not going to be doing any real estate marketing. We're going to be talking entirely about living a life as a Christian and how to step out in faith. So if you're not interested in that topic just fair warning. That's what this entire call is going to be about so you can move on if you don't have interest but. Oh yeah. So what I wanted to do today Caroline is kind of pick up where we left off the last time we're talking about getting out of the boat and what that means in our spiritual life I saw a plane off not playing off the title but the title of guy's book if you want to walk on water you've got to step out of the boat. So just out of curiosity without putting you on the spot there's no right answer. Does anything come to mind that stood out from our last call that you thought was really interesting or something you really picked up on.
[00:01:36] Well I do remember being just really challenged. I love the way that you explain a lot of you know almost what God expects of us in faith because I think a lot of times we kind of weather it just day to day. We don't really think about being there. You know and just you know the way that faith pleases God really is such a good challenge to be reminded of it's just the way that you explain things in the way that you take scripture. It feels more like conviction than just something that kind of warm and this conviction you know and like a charge and challenge I guess if that makes sense. So that's that's the feeling I remember leaving the last call with. So I don't know if that's something specific but I do always appreciate the way that you explain Scripture with a lot of you know fire and passion and tenacity. I love it.
[00:02:34] I appreciate that. You know it's interesting. If we truly live our life for Christ then there should be that fire and passion just like if you are truly in a marriage where you love your spouse there's gonna be that fire and passion as well because in our life with Christ is a relationship.
[00:02:56] And it's not a list of it's not a set of techniques. It's not a set of do's and don'ts. It's a relationship. And the more you know the person you're in love with the more you know how their heart beats the more you know how they respond and how much they love you then you just flourish in that environment. Does that make sense.
[00:03:22] Absolutely. I mean I think you know that's part of that's a good illustration with a marriage. I mean that's what our relationship with the word should be. It should be the most important relationship in our lives. Then you know to know him that's how we can begin to understand and serve him and so knowing him and loving him and what makes his heart be and I love that that's a great description.
[00:03:44] Yeah. So my goal with these calls is to try to open up what causes that heart to be. And there are laws okay. At the end of Romans 7 Paul talks about the law and how with the law comes recognition of the sin in fact without the law there is no sin but he starts to talk about God's laws are spiritual laws okay. We don't grasp them in our physical body our physical body is unable to do the spiritual laws and that's why our flesh is always at war in conflict worth God's laws and can never please God as it says later in Roman say but in when we have these spiritual laws the more we understand the spiritual laws that's the heart of the father because the father created these laws for us and and so my goal is to try to you know open up what these laws are so we understand more of God's heart and we understand more of how we live in relationship with that.
[00:04:57] Let me do a quick review on just a couple of key things we talked about last time. So this thing we're calling radical faith OK. Which is probably it's a term I started many years back and I'm not sure I will use it today only because I have to re-explain it in Christendom. There is no radical faith here either a yes or no you have faith or you don't have faith there is no degrees of faith that says that.
[00:05:27] What is it. I think it's Romans 12. God has given all a measure of faith. And you don't get more faith or of less faith you either have it or you don't. And in a technical term in what's called programming languages a billion billion is either true or false. OK. That's kind of what faces. But we in our fleshly minds tend to categorize things and degrees and we think that someone has faith because oh look at them there they're walking with the Lord.
[00:06:02] They must have faith or they pray or light. So they have faith but then we see someone that does something more dramatic and they go. That's really a lot of faith that's radical. OK. So using the term strictly from that point radical faith is really what God says this is faith. And what we talked about last time is that this concept this understanding of faith is really choosing to step out on God clearly defined will. And when we step out on. Clearly defined will we see God act when we step out at great personal risk or sacrifice. OK that's a little nutshell definition and this is the point I wanted to kind of underscore from last time. We talked about some things now I want to go into a little bit more application that we see from Scripture and maybe from other people's lives today. But the understanding is this is not simply stepping out trusting God to take care of us. What faith is it stepping out trusting God when we step out on what he directed us to do. Because a lot of times will presume upon God's goodness and when we presume upon God's goodness. God doesn't always act does that make sense.
[00:07:31] Absolutely I think you know the faith has to be placed in his word. And you know in his nature so that makes sense and that's a great explanation.
[00:07:42] Yeah. Let me give you an actual example real life story from to kind of talk about this. The. Let's see. I'm just shooting you a quick text.
[00:07:59] So on this story this is a bypass or over in Korea named Dr. Paul younger Cho. He wrote a book called The fourth dimension. Really fascinating book. It was written back in the 80s I think. And at that time his church was much smaller than it is today. At that time his church was only 500000 members. Okay. Today it numbers into the millions. But he was sharing this. He was talking about this this idea this understanding of faith and what it is and how we apply it. And he was sharing an example. That kind of I'm trying to lead into and that is it's not presumption. Faith is when we act on God's clearly defined well enough when we act on what we think his desires. And so there has been there was a lot of discussion during this timeframe about stepping out on God's will and stepping up by faith God's going to move and do frequently do the miraculous. So these teenagers were headed to a remote village to go share the gospel. That's God's will to go share the gospel with these people. They came to an impasse. There was a raging river. Much like the Jordan was a raging river at the time Joshua crossed the Jordan to go to Jericho. When God finally led them into the promised land and these teenagers there was a group of three or four girls out of this group of teenagers that said hey guys wait hold on. We're doing God's will. We need a step out by faith just like the priest did when they crossed the Jordan says they put their foot in the Jordan. The Jordan River dried up so they could cross on dry line dry land. So we need to trust God to do the same thing here. When we walk into that raging creek raging river god will dry it up and we're gonna walk across on dry land. So they stepped out and guess what happened.
[00:10:10] Did not part. That's right. They're not art.
[00:10:14] They found their bodies three or four days later. Okay so that's presumption. That's not faith. And this is the key. Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ and that hearing the word that word is Raymer. And in a very simplistic I was corrected by my pastor.
[00:10:36] One of my pastors a couple of years ago said you know the word Ramo actually has like you know multiple different definitions and stuff. So I'm not being real technical I'm being very general on this. The general idea with Reema is it's a specific message to you and those girls do not have a specific message to go step out in the creek in the river. So when we have the specific message then when we step out by faith then that's when God moves. Fun fun interesting story years back Smith Wigglesworth is praying for this guy who has no feet.
[00:11:17] And he said tomorrow when you wake up you will have feet. So you need to go buy some shoes today. So the man goes into the shoe store and says I need to get some shoes and the shoe man shoe salesman said what size. He said I don't know just pick any size. Therefore a guy looked as though you don't have any fees said not today but I will tomorrow. So he bought the shoes and he woke up in the morning in the Etsy. So now you could wear the shoes and they happen to be. I'm sure the exact same size as the shoes that he bought.
[00:11:56] So that's stamping out by God's direction. OK.
[00:12:02] But if you're not stepping out by God's clearly defined well then you're not standing up by faith. So just be cautious on that. So when we do step out this is the thing that's interesting when we act on quote God has clearly directed us even though what God has directed us may seem contrary to all natural laws. It doesn't matter because I think we talked about this earlier Thy word is truth remember. God's Word is truth.
[00:12:34] Truth is always true. What we have in N on the earth is simply reality and God's truth trumps reality all the time. So when God tells us to do something and it doesn't line up into what we think it should or could. That's where faith comes in because faith is is walking not by sight but by faith. So we find that God shows up when we step out sometimes God shows up providential and sometimes he shows up miraculously. We're having this challenge right now. I'll just share a personal story. It's not a challenge. There's this constant conflict. My wife and I and my son who goes by my name Beatty Junior and the Lord's been directing Beatty Junior to fast too fast for extended periods of time. Okay so you see a lot of people when they seek the Lord in the Bible they fast for 40 days and 40 nights. Now if you know anything about fasting the body usually can go about two or three weeks without food and then it goes into extreme stages of starvation. So 40 days and 40 nights and still have energy is miraculous.
[00:13:55] Well my wife is our concern because Beatty Junior is losing weight. I keep going but he's following guy's direction. Don't worry about it. So there's this natural conflict because she sees it in the natural but you got to have nutrition. And I keep saying. But if you feast on God's Word and God's word provides the sustenance your body needs. This is what it says back in in Rome and say that the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead gives life to our mortal bodies. Okay. Sustaining life. And so you have this conflict that it doesn't seem natural but because it's not. So are you going to trust the natural or are you going to trust God's word. And and so this kind of brings us back to one key element. You can't put God in a box based on what you see and experience. You can't put him in a box that it can't be true because. OK that's it. You know if you have a limit to what you're willing to trust God on then that means you've got God in a box and God doesn't fit in a box because he's infinite. And what he chooses to do goes beyond anything that the human mind can can dream up something and comprehend.
[00:15:24] Thank you. And so this is where. And so that's kind of the review I want to do one last thing that we talked about last week and then move on from there in two days visit. So last week we also talked about or last time we talked about Peter walking on the water and I just want to go back to that passage. So this is Matthew 14 versus 28 331. And it says this. So Peter said to him meanings to Jesus Lord if it's you.
[00:15:54] Command me to come to you on the water and Jesus said Come. Okay. So Peter's saying Lord if it's you give me a Raymer. Right. If we want to use these terms and so Jesus gave Peter a Raymer he commanded Peter come. And with that come in is the intrinsic promise of sustenance. Come walk on the water and you will walk. So so Peter now has this Rama. And so Peter with this quote unquote radical faith he steps out. He chooses to step out to do God's clearly defined will at great personal risk. OK. So there is our definition. And here's how Peter does it. And Peter got out of the boat and he walked on the water and he came toward Jesus. It makes no sense in the natural. But truth overcomes reality. And so he starts to walk on the water. And now God provides not profit initially but provides miraculously and then it continues and he says. But seeing the wind. He became frightened. So now we have the problem. Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus with his which is the truth and puts his eyes onto the natural which is reality. And something happens. But seeing the wind he became frightened and beginning to sink. He cries out. Lord save me. So as soon as he changes where he places his focus living life in the spirit versus life in the flesh if we go back to that Roman terminology kind of loosely okay then as soon as he does that the miracle stops and a natural consequence occurs. Until at that point he prays. He says Lord save me. And at that moment God answers his prayer immediately. Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and saved him. Right. And so we think sometimes that because God answers our prayer we're doing great.
[00:18:18] But that's not the case all the time because here God answers his prayer because he failed to do God's highest and best because he got his eyes off of Jesus and he got them on to reality. He shifted perspective and then Jesus rebuked him. There's only a few things that Jesus rebukes his disciples for the one he rebukes them the most often is this one you have little faith. Why did you doubt. And so now we have little faith and doubt. Doubt is the opposite of faith. Faith is seen from God's perspective. Doubt is seeing the opposite of God's perspective. And we could say that fairly simply and mostly accurately that doubt is seen from the natural perspective faith is from God's perspective. Doubt is from the natural perspective. And so here's the cool part that we start to pull out of this passage.
[00:19:22] Is that when we act in faith. God acts on our behalf. Either miraculously or providential both when we act by sight. Then what happens is those miracles or gods acting on our behalf stopped and we start to get the natural consequence.
[00:19:44] Did I share. I think I did last time about that period of time in my business like fears back where we were losing money losing money and I came to the law and said When are you going to let up and he said well if you believe my word to be true how would you act differently. Did we talk about that.
[00:20:02] We did. Yes and how you had cut back on salaries and then even though the numbers didn't add up. You kind of changed it around according to faith.
[00:20:12] Yeah yeah.
[00:20:13] So you know the cool thing is nothing changed except we now spent more money because we put everyone back at full pay and immediately without any any comprehension of how we did it. We started making money again.
[00:20:32] Okay. And this is what what happens when you step out by guys clearly defined well. So when he said you know if you really believe my word to be true how would you act differently than you're acting right now. When I acted differently then that was me acting on his. Okay. And so that kind of brings us in to where we are. And here's the here's why I want to kind of take off from here as we walk through our lives our life of walking by faith with the Lord. Nothing is set in stone in terms of what's going to occur in a kind of in a natural sense. Okay. In every situation there are two possible outcomes the outcome if we step out by faith and follow God's word or the outcome if we step out by sight. And follow our eyes. OK. And and as violence we follow God's word. We're gonna have his promises but if we fight if we if we resist his word because it doesn't make sense and therefore we're believing in our logic and in believing in our intellect and believing in what we see then at that point we don't get his promises we get the consequences of our actions and and both of those are true outcomes which is dependent on you.
[00:22:03] So I wanted to walk you through a couple of examples scripturally on how this works. Just to try to build out this picture a little bit more because what what I've learned is God starts to take what ever it is that we have. And then he usually multiplies that in some form or fashion to accomplish what we need. It's not that he does a creative miracle by itself is that he either does it create a miracle starting with what we have or he does a providential supply starting with what we have. But it seems like he usually starts with what little we have. And I want to I want Have you read a passage and then we'll kind of talk through this.
[00:22:48] So this is coming from second King's second Kings chapter 4 and the first six verses. So as you're getting there. Let me just kind of give the background. So this is a story about Eliza and a widow and not Elijah but this is Elijah successor Alicia. And let me know if you've got it pulled up and then I'll let you read it.
[00:23:16] Yes.
[00:23:17] Taking kings for starting first six verses OK here's how we read it.
[00:23:25] Ok so the wife of the man from a company of prophets cried out to Elijah your servant my husband is dead and you know that he revered the Lord but now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves. Elijah replied to her How can I help you. Tell me what you what do you have in your house.
[00:23:46] It has four walls also just kind of give you the framework here. So at this time you have what's called debtors prison and debtor slavery. If you owe money and you can't pay it you then come either thrown in prison until you or somebody brings the money on your behalf or you go into slavery to work it off. That's what's happened here. Her deceased husband had borrowed money. They have nothing. And so now she's about to lose her sons to become slaves. So da situation you pick up from there again.
[00:24:26] Ok so this is her replying to a license. She says your servant has nothing here at all she said except a small jar of olive oil like you said go round and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your son. Pour oil into all the jars and as it's filled. Put it to one side. She left him and shut the door behind her and her son. They they brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the doors were closed he said to her son bring me another one. But he replied There is not a jar left. Then the oil stopped flowing.
[00:25:03] Okay great. So here's we start to see the same pattern that we're going to see throughout. And that pattern is that.
[00:25:14] We come into a dire situation in fact I was reading in Psalms this morning and it says and it said that God takes pleasure and is honored when we cry out to him in times of trouble. He loves rescuing us. And so here we have a situation bad situation. The widow has nothing to lose her sons. And then she hears God's word God's Rama spoken through a life of the prophet. And first off God asks her What do you have. And she says I don't have much. All I have is a jar of oil. So then there's the Rama.
[00:26:05] We'll go grab all the jars not little ones and not just a few as many big ones as many jars as possible throughout everywhere in the village.
[00:26:15] Go on and bring them all. And so they act by faith. They can't see. They don't understand. If they were to try to understand in the natural they would completely doubt. But they acted on God's word. And then when they acted on God's word God starts to do a miracle. He starts to take the little that she has and produce the abundance that she needs. But he starts with what she has which is the little that she has and her faith. And then we see one other thing. Okay as long as she acts by faith and there's more jars to pour the oil into what happens to the oil.
[00:27:06] It stops flowing once the giant.
[00:27:08] Yeah. Once they're out of charge. But as long as they continue to have jars and continue to act by faith God continue to produce a miracle.
[00:27:18] But then my second question was going to be what happened when they ran out of jars when they ran out. They stopped acting by faith and the oil stopped. It's the same pattern that happened with Peter walking on the water isn't it.
[00:27:37] Peter walked on the water as long as he acts by faith. As soon as he starts acting the miracle starts. But we see that guy there with a light show. Let's pull up another one. Pull this up. So then let's shift over to Mark and I'll read this. This comes from Mark Six. This is Jesus feeding the 5000 people. We see a very similar pattern. OK so this is starting in verse 35. It says when it was already quite late His disciples came to him to Jesus and said This place is desolate so just set the background okay.
[00:28:21] Jesus has come over here to a large area on the side of the lake. The Sea of Galilee. Crowds of people are there. He's been teaching them okay. They've been there apparently for several days and now we we pick up on this and it is already quite late His disciples came to him and said This place is desolate and is already quite late send them away so that they may go by themselves something to eat but Jesus answered You give them something to eat.
[00:28:54] How much have you have. How much do you have. How many loaves. We have some kind of skipping around. And Jesus says go look. Tell me how many loaves you have so same thing that happened with Aisha. He asked the widow first. What do you have. That's now what Jesus is doing. What do you have. And when they found out they said five and two fish. So they don't have much. And their need is very great. So then Jesus commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass.
[00:29:27] And it says that they all eight and were satisfied and they picked up twelve baskets of the broken pieces and also the fish fish. And there were 5000 men who ate the loves. So we know obviously that there's 10 to 15000 total people by the time you add women and children. So here we see the same thing happening. God takes the little that we have and produces the abundance that we need. Because he takes the little that we have and produces the abundance that we need when we are following him. When we act in faith by faith on his direction when we serve him because he always takes a little that we have and produces the abundance we need there should never be any time of fear in our lives because we don't have enough of one ever because I know one of the things that most of us struggle with is oh my gosh we don't have enough money to pay the bills or we don't have enough of this or when it comes to health or anything like that we're always start to get our eyes on the natural but God says follow me when I give you a direction step out in faith and I'll always provide for you I'll always give you what you need I won't share one other story from biblical account and this is the story of getting in Do you remember getting in the Bible.
[00:31:02] I do. I don't remember much about him. OK.
[00:31:07] Yes. So. So Gideon is one of one of the judges. OK so to give you a historical perspective the Israelites have moved into the Promised Land. Joshua has now died. And when Joshua died the leadership who trusted the Lord and believed in the Lord and follow the Lord went away. And then people kind of went and did their own things. Okay. So you lost the unity you lost the leadership and therefore you lost the. The receiving of the full promise. So there was a period of judges where God used different people. He called judges. There were basically rulers of the people that would come up and provide protection for the people and guidance and Gideon is one of them. So the way it happens with Gideon is the Lord speaks to Gideon says Gideon. So at this time many knights were coming and raiding the Israelites and they would read them during harvest time. So you'd go out there you'd work all the time you know get a crop in get your olives in get your grapes in and then these bands of warriors would come and attack you and take all your food. So people were living in caves.
[00:32:35] They were storing their food in secret trying to do everything they could to protect themselves. And that's the time that we find Gideon and God comes up to Gideon and says I think I've got this turn right. Oh mighty warrior. OK. And getting in says who me and God tells getting that I want you to go defeat your enemies for Israel. And getting in says I'm not sure this is real. I'm the least of the least of all the tribes and the youngest of my family my family is the least of the tribe. Okay. And so from a hierarchy he has no ruler in ruling or leadership opportunity. It's sort of a caste system there and he's at the bottom of the barrel. But God says no it is you. You know I've chosen you right. And we're gonna want you to do it. So if you remember the story the fleece getting put out of fleece. This is really you and this is your word then cause the police to be wet but the ground to be dry. God does and then he does it again but just it cause the fleece to be dry. But the ground to be wet guy does. And so God has patience with Gideon as Gideon wrestles with what he sees in the natural versus gods clearly defined well for him.
[00:33:58] So now we fast forward just a little bit. Gideon steps out by faith he takes away the altar that his father had made to an idol and and then we fast forward to the point that I want to talk about at this point the MITI knights are now invading the land they're coming against the land. And God tells Gideon you know go and defend Israel against the media nice So Gideon goes out any recruits about 30000 soldiers you call them soldiers. These are peasants for the most part they're farmers. They don't have any swords. I think out of the whole group there may be like three or four swords at that. Okay but come out with Ploughshares with slings whatever they have. And and they're up against thirty one hundred and thirty five thousand Medhi Knight soldiers armed for war. Okay so. But Gideon acts by faith and then God says getting this too many people tell those who are scared to go home. So he tells those who are scared you can go home. So 10000 leave. And now he's left with twenty thousand and now getting into getting a little nervous. Would you agree.
[00:35:23] Yes.
[00:35:25] Twenty thousand force a third of my troops. And we're going to get one hundred thirty five thousand armed warriors all right.
[00:35:32] Those numbers don't add up. Those numbers don't add. So what do you. So what does God say.
[00:35:38] Oh remember. I mean it's been so long.
[00:35:41] Yeah. God says getting you still have too many.
[00:35:44] Yeah. Yeah. But you still have to man.
[00:35:48] So he says Tell everyone to go to the creek go to this river and drink. And based on how they drink there are two ways to drink water you kneel and you cut it in your hand and you bring it up to your mouth and the other way to drink is you kneel and you stick your mouth down to the creek and actually drink out of the creek.
[00:36:08] And he says tell I won't go down and drink. And based on how they drink and I think it's the ones who kneel and stick their mouth into the creek to slurp it up just tell all of them to go home. And so now median is down. Gideon is down to 300 men from thirty thousand three hundred. And guess what God says at that point.
[00:36:35] He says more. Oh no. He says that's perfect. That's all you need.
[00:36:41] Three hundred men against a hundred and thirty five thousand meeting tonight. Okay but then God tells get in to do something strange again. He says now what I want you to do is I want each of you to carry a torch underneath a jar and carry a trumpet. Or a bugle. So if you think about it these days. Okay. You'd have to carry the torch with a jar in one hand and the bugle on the other hand. There is nothing else for you to carry. So he's sending these guys out there without any weapons of warfare. Against one hundred thirty five thousand million AIDS. And here's the plan. All of you get straight down the line marks out there. You take off the jars or break your jars all at the same time. So now there's a flame of torches across one into the other. And then everyone blows the trumpet and says for Gideon and for the Lord. But before he since getting out there God says one more thing. Gideon if you're scared go down into the camp and listen. So Gideon takes his armor bearer. They go into this camp and they hear a story of a dream Being related by one to midnight soldiers to the other.
[00:38:05] I had this dream and this this song this loaf of bread roll down and fell on the tent and crushed it and the other person is now interpreting the dream. By God's direction thing. Well that's nothing but the sort of Gideon he's going to destroy us all. Okay so now Gideon is hearing this go okay. We got this. So now I want you to picture the situation. Gideon goes back and tells these 300 men hey here's what God has told us to do. Here's what we just heard in the camp. Guys we got this. Let's go forward. So they stepped out and they start to march in the middle of the night to do what God has told them.
[00:38:48] Here's the question I have for you. Do you think their heart was beating fast. Do you think they were nervous and maybe a little apprehensive as they went out there or do you think they were cocky confident.
[00:39:06] I would think their hearts would be beating fast even though they heard that you had that word I would think would be.
[00:39:14] I would think so too. OK so firming up by faith is it a lack of concern.
[00:39:22] But it's your choice to step out on God's Will overruling and overpowering any concern you have in the flesh. Okay so it's not like people talk about oh you're so brave. Talking about you know battle warriors. So I wasn't I was scared to death. I just did what I had to do. Okay so the same thing faces. It's not that you have no concern is simply that your commitment to do what the Lord said overrides any concerns that you have.
[00:39:54] And so that's where we find Gideon and the rest the story is they go down there they break their jars so no one holds out their torch. They all blow the trumpet. So you know the trumpet in that time the bugle is a call to war.
[00:40:08] And so three hundred men with trumpets our bugle start blowing their bugles and yelling for Gideon and for the Lord and they round the media night army and from that little bit. The entire hundred thirty five thousand Mitty nights were completely cool. They not only start killing themselves but then during this battle the other Israelites that were the 30000 that did not come with them they muster arms and they come out and they start pursuing them until they're all destroyed. And so we see the same pattern the pattern is that God takes the little resources we have. And frequently he puts us in a position to have only a little bit of resource so that we don't rely on ourselves but we rely on God. And then he tells us very clearly what we should do when he tells us clearly what we talked about in one of the other sessions he highlights scripture for you and he speaks it to your heart or in some way he makes it very clear you know Caroline or Beatty or sue. This is my word for you. I want you to do this. And he makes it very clear to us. And then we step out by faith to do what he has said and we have no comprehension really of how he's going to accomplish protecting us. We're scared we're nervous but we do it anyway because it's God's word to us. And then when we do that God shows up. That's how this whole radical faith concept starts to play out. Is this making sense.
[00:42:01] Oh yes it is. I mean I think even just your description using that story with Gideon is you know encouraging too because I think a lot of times in our mind you know when we think of radical faith or you know what kind of basis we think that pleases God you know maybe we pop ourselves out a thing because you know it's okay to still have you know maybe a question or our heart beating back and you know I think that's encouraging to know. No I mean that's okay. It's about obedience. It's about taking that step even in the midst of you know that kind of question. So I think that was really encouraging for me.
[00:42:44] Let me let me share just kind of personally a time in my business where we weren't doing all that well financially business was hard. Revenues were down. Customers were not very prevalent. Trying to get new customers was tough. And we were on the verge of you know in the natural going out of business. And and the Lord told me focus on my temple not your business. Okay so this message is Hagai one in two. So let me give you the quick synopsis of Hagai Hagai one.
[00:43:26] Okay so this is during the time of Zachariah and Azra it's at the end of the dispersion of the Israelites as God destroy Jerusalem destroyed the temple and shift and sent all of his people Israel and Judah into exile and then God calls them back and they start to rebuild the wall and rebuild the temple. So Hagai is in that timeframe. And during this timeframe they were told to start to rebuild. So they they built the wall up OK. And they were also supposed to build a temple but they stopped building the temple the place of worship. OK. In the Old Testament the temple is a physical structure in the new temple in the New Testament.
[00:44:17] And now the temple is the body of Christ. We're all living stones that we build out the temple of the Lord because the temple is where the Lord dwells and that's us. Okay. So so the correlation into two days time is building the temple is is is sharing the Gospel nurturing people deciphering them being gods hands and feet and building up to the body of Christ. So in Hagai one it says you know you work hard and you get nothing in return.
[00:44:53] He says you put money in your pocket and it goes out in the holes in your pocket. God says I blow it all away.
[00:44:59] And why do I blow away all of your work and all your labors because your focus on your house by my house lies in ruins. And then in Hagai 2 he tells him something really interesting. And it's one of these things that makes no sense. He says. Stop focusing on your own house.
[00:45:21] Stop focusing on your fields. Stop focusing on your provision. Stop focusing on trying to harvest in the grapes and the olives and the figs and all your crops because I just keep blowing them away. You have nothing because I choose for you to have nothing because you've been disobeying me. He says instead focus on building my temple. And if you do then I will bless all of your crops and all your fields and all your heart I'll bless all of that and you'll have an abundance.
[00:45:55] So in this timeframe in my business it was one of those situations where I was working really hard because everything was going south. Figuratively speaking and it required all of my focus just to keep the business going and God kept telling me this is your problem. I told you earlier to build my temple but you keep focusing on your house and Sir my house take me at my word. Focus on my house first and then see what happens. So you know what I did.
[00:46:35] Thanks direction. You have that kind of vision be back in the place. I don't know.
[00:46:42] Yeah I started to focus on saying Okay I'm going to take my time my mental energies my efforts that I would normally put in the business to try to work the business and get it jumpstarted and I'm instead going to abandon that direction and focus on building the Lord's house. Now I still have some business responsibilities I had to do during that time okay. And so I maintain them but my focus shifted to not be concerned about my house but to be concerned about his house.
[00:47:15] And guess what happened with my business.
[00:47:20] Yeah I worked less in the business I had less stress in the business because I turned it over to him and I was now focusing on building his house and also my business starts to grow. It makes no sense in the natural. But it makes all kinds of sense in the spiritual because it's the truth. The truth is when you act on God's direction his clearly defined well for you and you step out at great personal risk or sacrifice because what I was risking is I could lose everything if if I'm wrong.
[00:47:54] But yet even though I was nervous about it I chose to take God at His word and God provided the same thing that we see throughout all these scriptures.
[00:48:07] So that's pretty cool I can tell you some other stories On My Mind in just a moment but I want to kind of go through a couple of what I call truths in all this. So this and the truths of radical faith. Ok first truth is that God is going to use the little that we have to produce the abundance that we need. When we step out on his word he always provides enough. So he's going to always take a little that we have and always provide. The abundance we need. That's the law. That's one of his spiritual laws. Gosh I love to tell you some more stories. Let me move on. The second truth is we must act in faith without any doubt. OK. Once we doubt. The miracle stops or the providential supply stops. Basically when we act by faith which is on God's clearly defined will then God always produces as he's promised. But when we stop acting by faith and we start looking in the natural we get our eyes off of the Lord and on to our circumstances. Then we stop receiving the Lord's providential blessings and we start to receive circumstantial consequences. And the third truth that we can pull out of all this is we have to be willing to accept risk. You cannot live a Christian life without risk because by definition faith is all about risk. With what we see because by definition faith is seeing things from God's perspective which is not the world's perspective. College is kind of making sense.
[00:50:13] Those are great. I hope they will. Let's rewind. Write this down. Those are some great principles. The premise is even more laid on a little longer. What a great way to kill this thing.
[00:50:28] Yeah. So I love what so one of the guys that I learned learned is the wrong word one the guys I studied and that helped me a lot and going on and praying for healing and seeing God heal as a guy named Robbie Dawkins and.
[00:50:52] He says faith is spelled out. I ask. It's risk.
[00:50:59] And here's the way that I think I may have shared this in one of the other visits. Here's the way he expresses it in healing terms. His son one of his son's name is Judah and his son is at a McDonald's. And did I tell the story last time. If I did not tell it again.
[00:51:21] Remember McDonald. Okay Green. I don't know but I'm all for the now.
[00:51:29] Okay folks I'll let them know we finish the story basically redundant then totally a. So. So Judah is at a McDonald's a bunch of high schoolers are in there and one the high school kids is on crutches with a bum food. So what happened is that I broke my foot. So does it hurt his head hurts a lot. So would you like God to heal it.
[00:51:52] Well sure. First off do you think that that high schooler had any expectation that God was going to heal that foot right then. No probably not.
[00:52:01] Probably not. You just said Sure I love regarding yoga but he had no expectation. So here's the question. Did Judah take him off into a corner by himself or no one could see to pray for that foot for God to heal it instantly. Or do you think Judah called everyone in the restaurant to come watch it happen.
[00:52:27] I mean I'm sure. Which way would you do it. I don't know that I would.
[00:52:33] Call everybody to come see it. Whenever we pray for people we do whatever the natural circumstances are we wouldn't necessarily take them away or sue people away but I don't know that we would also sometimes think that they are. But you know I'm thinking wait a minute. Let me tell stories before where he's caught people that won't be my words.
[00:53:01] That's what happened here. So keep in mind Judah is Robby's son and Robby spells faith. Ah I ask. So far Judah did and this is kind of where am.
[00:53:11] This is one of the truisms okay to a degree of radical faith. Is all about risk. You have to be willing to accept risk of what Judah did.
[00:53:20] If he yells out to the entire restaurant Hey guys you want to see a miracle. God is about to heal this broken foot right now.
[00:53:27] Come over and watch that stepping out at great personal risk right. Because you could be greatly embarrassed if God doesn't show up. And then one of the guys said I'm an atheist. I don't believe in that. And so Judas said well then you come up front because you're going to wipe something happened. And so he prays for the foot instantly Hill. The guy throws away his crutches jumping up and down everyone's amazed. God gets the glory. Okay so stepping up in faith always requires risk.
[00:54:06] And I would even say that to the degree of risk you take by acting on God's word is the degree of amazement you're gonna have in watching God work in your life. Let me share just a couple of stories and then we'll wrap up because we're getting close to the time so provision. OK. I want to tell the story of how I got started in business because it's really interesting but it has it ties all this together and shows how much God takes care of us. So nineteen ninety seven is the starting of the story. My wife and I are young married. We have one child just coming out of diapers or maybe still in diapers. We have another Beatty that comes that year. And I find myself first off she's a stay at home mom. So she has no income. We have a house with a mortgage. We have a car with a mortgage. If you ever had one of those and I was unemployed we had 5000 dollars in savings and I gave that five thousand dollars to a missionary couple. So by the first of the year we had nothing in savings. That's where we found ourselves. I did 13 different things that year to make money.
[00:55:40] None of them were very brilliant and none of them did a whole lot because by the end of the year my total adjusted gross income. What you what you actually pay taxes on before you have any giving deductions or maybe after I forget but my total just adjusted gross income was eleven thousand eight hundred eighty two dollars. That's after giving. And during that time what we did is we were giving at that time 20 percent of our income. So every time we earn some money first thing we did is we honor the Lord with it. We gave 20 percent first to the Lord and then we lived off the rest. And I'm a firm believer in Malachi 3. And second Corinthians 9 both of which talk about you cannot out give God financially if you trust him and and give generously that he'll always take care of your needs. So. So here's the cool thing. Not only did we have both mortgages. Not only did we have a Beatty come that year. My wife also had a root canal which cost eleven hundred dollars cash. Not only words are adjusted gross income eleven thousand eight hundred eighty two dollars and not only did we have nothing in savings but here's the cool part.
[00:57:04] We never once miss a payment on anything.
[00:57:08] Well we never once were even late on a payment. We always had an abundance for all of our needs. How does that happen. It doesn't just happen but God moved providential me throughout that entire time and took care of our needs but we stepped out in faith giving the little that we had to him first because we gave by his clearly defined will that he wants us to give and he promises to take care of us when we do. And so that's just you know just another example of not bringing sorry to me but bringing story to how good God is. And we've never once have gone through a period of time where we did not have enough. We've gone through a period of time where we almost went bankrupt. But God always provided and we always had an abundance. And there was never even any great fear because we knew God would always take care of us. And that's kind of what I'm talking about with this radical faith that's trusting at that level that that God is gonna move. Let me wrap up the last couple of thoughts on this because I've got to we've got to start wrapping it up. Last couple of thoughts on this faith is the absolute trust that God will do what he says he will do. And that's where on the last call at the end of the last call I was told you know God asked me what you really believe my word to be true. How would you act differently than you're acting right now.
[00:58:49] If you're acting differently then you would act if you really believed God's word to be true.
[00:58:56] Then you really don't have faith because faith is that absolute trust that God will do what he says he will. And therefore you're going to do exactly what he tells you to do. Faith ultimately can be kind of wrapped up in a simple question Do you trust me. Do you trust my word to be true. Do you trust me to be faithful and true. Do you trust that I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do. And it's not so much about our ability to handle things. Our ability to fix our problems. The thing faith is all about trusting God to act on his promise. Now if we don't have this promise if we don't have his word then we cannot act by faith. It starts first. Faith comes from hearing the word of Christ. So we have to do that. And then the last thing I want to share is how much faith does it take. I mentioned earlier at the first the call that faith is you either have it or you don't. It's either true or false. Everyone's been given a measure of faith. When the disciples said to Jesus increase our faith Jesus doesn't say how to increase faith he says well if you have faith of grain the size of a grain of mustard seed you could tell this mountain to be taken up and thrown into the mountain into the ocean. That is not how much faith you have it's simply that you have faith. So I want to show you something. So this comes from Mark Martin 9 versus 23 and 24. To set the stage Jesus has just come down from the mount of transfiguration.
[01:00:36] So this is where Moses and Elijah you know the Prophet the law and the prophet and now Christ's grace and the new covenant all appear the law and the prophets disappear.
[01:00:49] All you have left is the new covenant of grace and Peter blurts out before the law and the prophets disappear. It says Shall I make you a tent for all three of them. Okay. So then they come down the mountain they find a commotion and a commotion is there's a man there with a boy with epilepsy who brought the his son to Jesus his disciples to cast out the demon to heal a son and they could not. And so that's now where we start to find this passage and then he says Lord help me help. Help me if you can.
[01:01:31] And then Jesus says starting in Mark 923 and Jesus said to him if you can. All things are possible to him who believes. And immediately the boy's father cried out and said I do believe help my unbelief. So here's the question. Caroline how much faith did that father have.
[01:01:58] Very little. I mean I guess you could say the size of a mustard seed that Al Gore would need to work with what we have.
[01:02:06] That's right. He had very little in fact the only faith he had. He brought his son there. But even by his own admission. I do believe help my unbelief and all it takes is a little bit of belief. God takes the little that we have.
[01:02:26] And then he miraculously produces the abundance that we need to accomplish what he said is gonna happen. And so it's not a lot of faith is simply acting by what we do have. And last couple of statements on this is that you cannot receive God's promises without faith office promises or promises. From the spiritual realm they emanate into quite frequently into the physical realm. But just like his laws are spiritual so are his promises and you cannot receive those promises except by faith. The other final thing is faith and doubt cannot coexist. If you doubt you don't have faith.
[01:03:18] This is what James says but not the one who doubts expect to receive anything from the Lord. It's okay to be a little bit afraid. It's okay to be a little anxious just like Gideon going down there. I'm sure his heart was beating and they're probably perspiring and they're going oh lord I'm doing what you said but please show up. Okay. And we did the same thing. But the fact is that you act by faith just like the guy that I was selling about Smith Wigglesworth. If he did not go and buy those shoes would he have woken up with his feet. I don't know but my guess is probably not because it was that little act of faith. Trusting guy was gonna do what he did. And we see this even with Jesus. He tells someone he will go wash your eyes and it's only when he wash his eyes that he starts to see.
[01:04:12] So that's pretty much it. Any thoughts or comments anything stand out for you.
[01:04:20] Well I think it was kind of like we started off earlier. It's just a challenge you know to examine your heart. And it's a challenge to step out and risk when you feel holy spirit pumping are you. You hear the words too you know to go for it whether it's praying for somebody or believing for healing or believing like you said the provision whatever it is. I think sometimes that it's easy to believe in your own family or are against it. For my experience to believe you know four things because I can reflect back and know has always been faithful and things like that for my own family and for this and. But it's definitely been these calls have been challenging me as far as stepping out for the evangelistic side because that's not always the easiest thing to operate in as easily as my husband. And so as always it's a good reminder just to go and to to kind of. I don't love this terminology but you know for lack of a better word it's just the verse uses under the bus. But let's do it like you've got to show up guys. And so I don't know. I always walk away challenged. So thank you for inviting me to be a part of this.
[01:05:39] Ok. Well you're welcome.
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